The Navigator - Book Review

The Navigator
by Clive Cussler
Published July 2008 (PB)
Published June 2007 (HC)
Berkeley/Penguin

As most of you know, I have been reading Clive Cussler's books for the last 20 years. While I prefer Dirk Pitt because he is the original hero, I have discovered that I also like the new hero Kurt Austin as well.


Kurt has taken over Dirk Pitt's old job as Leader of the Special Operations Team in NUMA. Dirk got promoted to Director of NUMA. Admiral Sandecker is now the Vice President of the USA. I have been somewhat reluctant to switch to a new hero, but having now read The Navigator, I think Kurt Austin is an excellent replacement for Dirk.

Dirk Pitt is mentioned several times in his position as Director of NUMA. Which helps to keep the continuity of the changeover. A new Specials Operations team has been formed. This new team has 4 members. Whereas Dirk and Giordino used to be on their own as a team and preferred it that way.

The Navigator refers to a large life size statue of a sailor. On this statue is a map. This statue used to sit in the basement of the Baghdad musem for many years. Until the US army occupied the country in 2003. Since then, a lot of irreplaceable art has been stolen from the Baghdad museum and sold on the illegal arts market.

One of the statues stolen is the Navigator. It was dated to Phoenician times (about 1000 BCE). The Phoenicians were a great trading and seafaring people. Their home land was the coastal area we know as the Levant - which covers Palestine and Lebanon. The Phoenicians were known to have traded all over the Mediterranean, and possble along the Atlantic coast of North Africa and Southern Europe as well.

When Carina Mechadi (a former journalist and now an art detective) is given the opportunity and the money to find the Navigator, she tracks it down using all her contacts in the Middle east - especially in Iraq. When she finds it, she gets it packed up and placed on a container ship. Carina then purchases a passenger ticket on the same container ship in order to stay close to the statue, and travels with the statue back to USA. The statue is to be the centre piece of a museum display and tour.

En route to USA, the container ship is attacked by pirates, who attempt the steal the statue. By chance Kurt and Joe are on board an ice patrol ship in the vicinity catching icebergs and towing them to a safe place, so that they do not hit the oil rigs and platforms dotting the North Atlantic.

When the container ship captain does not answer the radio, Kurt and Joe head to the ship to find out what is happening, and to steer it away from the oilrig directly in its path.

This novel has penty of action. Kurt. Joe and Carina work together to find out who wants the statue so badly, and why. They also travel to Turkey where they locate a second statue. Together they find gold mines, maps, scrolls, a ship that should not be there and a startling letter from Thomas Jefferson (the 3rd president of the USA) which reveals that if the scrolls are released to the world, their contents could cause unrest and possibly war in the Middle East. Carina also finds out a stunning secret about her ancestry.

I give this novel a 5 out of 5 - just as good as the Dirk Pitt novels.

Get Out of Bed - Munsch

Get Out of bed
By Robert Munsch
Illustrated by Allan and Lea Daniel
Scholastic Canada 1998

The Official Robert Munsch website
It takes a while to load up, so be patient.
Get out of Bed - the story behind the story



One night Amy went downstairs to watch TV. She watched the Late Show, the Late Late show, the Late Late Late Show and then she watched the Early Early Early Early Show. She finally went to bed because she felt somewhat tired.

At breakfast the next morning, Amy did not arive at the table. Her brother,father and mother all tried to wake Amy up. Amy continued sleeping.
What will we do, said her mother. I have to go to work.
So do I said Amy's father.
And I have to go to school said Amy's brother.

I know said Amy's brother. Let's take her to school in her bed.
Good idea said the parents.
So Amy's bed is carried along the road to school. It was carried right to the classroom and set down at the back. Amy slept in her bed all through reading, arithmetic, gym class, art, and still she did not wake up. At the end of the day the principal called the parents to come and get Amy and take her home. Amy stayed sleeping right through until the following morning.

The next day Amy came down to breakfast and said, I had a wonderful sleep, but I had strange dreams.
When Amy arrived at school that day, the principal said Hello Amy, how are you today.
Wonderful, thank you but I did have some strange dreams. said Amy.

When Amy arrived at her classrom, it was full of beds and everyone was snoring.

Going Inside - Book Review

Going Inside
A couple's journey of Renewal into the North.
By Alan Kesselheim
McClelland & Stewart 1995.

In 1989 and 1990 Alan Kesselheim (an outdoors writer) and his partner MaryPat Zitzer (both from Bozeman, Montana) were having problems in their relationship. They had been trying to have children. After more than 5 years and several miscarriages, they were still childless.

So they did what they knew how to do best - they went canoeing down a river. First they had to plan the trip - that took a year. They had to gather enough dried food, clothes and other necessities for a year in the Canadian wilderness.

In the summer of 1990, Alan and MaryPat (MP) and all their gear (food, clothes, maps, canoe, paddles, lamps, tents, sleeping bags, lighting fluid, etc) was transported by road to a small town called Grande Cache in west central Alberta not far from the Rockies. Grand Cache is south of Grande Prairie, on the Smoky River.

The plan was to canoe down the Smoky River, continue down the Peace River and end up at Lake Athabasca. There they would hole up for the winter and spring, and then continue canoeing north along the Kazan River (through what was then NWT and is now Nunavut) to Baker Lake and the Hudson Bay. That was the plan. They pulled it off almost perfectly with no major mishaps.

I say almost perfectly - because there was one little mishap - if you can call it a mishap. MaryPat finally became pregnant during this first half of this trip and ended the trip still canoeing while she was 6 months pregnant. She gave birth to their first son (Eli Kazan) in October 1991. MP has since had 2 more children . Marypat and Alan are now married (to each other).

The point of this book IMO is the description of the wilderness, the trip and the personal feelings between these two people while they were trying to find themselves. MP discovers she is pregnant in January when they are snowed in at Otherside River Lodge for the winter.

I found the story of the first half of the trip and the winter overstay on Lake Athabasca very enjoyable, and nicely detailed. But when winter and spring were over, the last half of the trip (during which MP is becoming more pregnant every day) is rather less detailed than the earlier parts. Possibly because all Alan could think about was Mary and her "delicate" condition.

But if you really want to know what it is like to LIVE in the wilderness (northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan) then this is one of the MUST-HAVE books to read.

Alan and MP had completed an earlier canoe trip back in 1985. On that trip they had canoed down the Athabasca River from the source to Lake Athabasca, and then did the same overstay at Otherside Lodge over winter. They then continued their trip by canoeing down the Kazan river to Baker Lake in the summer. Alan also wrote a book about that trip as well.

The largest freshwater delta in the world is at the western end of Lake Athabasca where three rivers meet - Peace, Athabasca and Slave Rivers. I learned that from this book.

The more I read these types of books - people going on interesting trips through the wilderness - the more I know that I have to travel to all the other provinces and territories in the next 40 years of my life. So far I have only been to Ontario and Quebec - and that was just to Montreal.

Oh yes and I read this for the 2nd Canadian Challenge. And that is 8 books this month so far. There are 10 books listed on my sidebar, but I am doing the Munsch books as a separate challenge to my main free spirit challenge. So I dont count the Munsch books as part of the total. And thats why I list them as Munsch on the sidebar so we can all tell who wrote what. LOL

50 Greatest Books and other stuff

This is my 400th post since I started posting in March last year.
Also today is the one year anniversary of my surgery. (See yesterdays post).
And lastly here is the Greatest Book for this week.

Madame Bovary, c'est tout le monde

Madame Bovary had no precursors, was radically original. In a letter Flaubert sent to his mistress, Louise Colet, in 1852, while writing the novel, he said, "What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by the inner force of its style ..."

One aspect of that style was an acute attention to detail. The fulsome descriptions of food and clothing at the Bovary wedding, or the hotel room in Rouen where her trysts with Léon take place, reflect to perfection prevalent bourgeois obsessions. It is a novel constructed of details, as if the thrust of the story were an avalanche of objects gaining speed as they rumbled downhill to the dénouement, and that somehow they were pulling the characters along with them.

At the same time, every detail fits, each adds to the whole, nothing is wasted. The inevitability of the plot resonates with the inevitability of the words chosen. The novel feels like a world built up out of atomic particles, following an ineluctable yet mysterious order.

[read the link fast or you will have to subscribe to the online newspaper to read it]

Book Meme for 2008

I dont think I have done one of these for a very long time, so here is a catch up meme on what books I like. I found it at susan's blog

Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?
I do not remember being taught to read. My father says I learned to read by flash cards. He showed me the flash cards - with words on them - when I was a child, because he was wanting to teach me to speak clearly. I have a hearing problem and I taught myself to lipread (although it is supposed to be called "speech reading" now). Anyway all those flashcards means I learnt to read by the time I was 4 and 5 years old. I remember having to take speech lessons when I was about 8 years old - to stop me from "gabbling" - which means I spoke to fast and not always clearly.

What are some books you read as a child?
Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, The Bobbsey Twins, Enid Blyton mysteries - Famous Five, Secret Seven, Adventurous Four, Mallory Towers and St Clair school series, The Chalet School Series by Elinor m. Brent-Dyer and of course Laura Ingalls Wilder,

What is your favorite genre?
Non Fiction mostly - especially History. But I also like Action & Adventure novels.

Do you have a favorite novel?
NO

Where and when do you usually read?
on the bus to and from school (or work), lunch time, and in bed at night.

Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?
YES

Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?
NOPE

Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?
Mostly buy. Sometimes I borrow from the library.

Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?
I keep the good ones. Every now and then when my book shelves/cupboard/piles get too full, I clear out the old books and donate them to Goodwill.

If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?
My son likes Robert Munsch, and books based on his favourite TV series. No, he has not shown any interest in any of the books I liked a child - but 40 years ago, there was not a lot of colour or action in children's books. And none of my books were based on TV series.

What are you reading now?
You mean right now?
Going Inside by Alan Kesselheim
Legerdemain by James J. Heaphey
WhoopiGoldbergBook by Whoopi Goldberg
The end of America by NAncy Wolf
All NON-fiction

Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?
I keep a TBR cupboard and TBR piles? Do they count?

What books would you like to reread?
Helene Hanff - she is about the ONLY author I can read over and over again.

Who are your favorite authors?
So many!!
Helene Hanff
James Rollins
Clive Cussler
Steve Berry
Matthew Reilly
James Burke from UK (NOT James Lee Burke)

Art Thief - Book Review

Art Thief
by Noah Charney
published by Atria - September 2007
Amazon website
Video You Tube (3 minutes)

I LOVE Art History. I love reading books about Art, Stolen art, Art crimes and Art auctions.



The premise of the novel is that three paintings are stolen from 3 different countries at (more or less) the same time. A Caravaggio disappears from a church in Italy. One Malevich disappears from the Malevich Society in Paris and another Malevich is stolen from the National Gallery in London. Also a small unnamed Suprematist painting disappears from a collector's house in London. All of these thefts are related somehow.

The key characters in this book are the French police, in the form of Jean-Jacques Bizot, as well as Genevieve Delaloche, the Director of the Malevich society in Paris and Elizabeth van der Mier, Director of the National Gallery of Modern Art in London. Other major characters are Gabriel Coffin (an American art professor presently teaching at Cambridge University), and lastly Profesor Barrow.

There is a lot of art history done in the form of lectures by Barrow and Coffin, but I enjoyed them very much. Barrow does art history and iconography. Coffin does art crime and profiling.

One very detailed and interesting lecture was about the iconography of The Marriage Contract by Jan Van Eyck. Another lecture was about oil paints and how to tell which families (who comissioneed the painting) were rich and who were poor. The answer is lapis lazuli.I apologise for going on about the details, but I do love art.


Back to the novel. Do these three missing paintings ever turn up? Well...Yes and No. It turns out that two of the main characters were involved in the thefts. But the author did a very good job of not giving things away until the very last moment. The twist was totally unexpected - by me anyway.

The Amazon reviews say that this book is written very chunkily. If that means there is a lot of long boring parts done in the forms of spoken lectures, well yes of course there is. The author is an art historian himself, educated at Cambridge. Of course he wants to show off his knowledge. IMO only a person who really likes Art History would enjoy this novel. I certainly did.

1 year anniversary of my craniotomy surgery

Craniotomy - A surgical operation in which part of the skull, called a bone flap, is removed in order to access the brain.

Actually the 1 year anniversary is tomorrow (Saturday 26th) but I'm mentioning it today because my weekends are usually pretty busy.

Anyway, one year ago tomorrow, I was up at 5 am walking to the hospital to be in the operating room by 6.30 am for surgery which was due to start at 7.45.

I can still remember telling myself (as I was walking) that things were now out of my hands and if I should not survive the surgery - well at least I wouldn't be aware of it because I would already be unconcious. I dont beleive that heaven or hell actually exist, so I did not expect to go to in either of those places.

As it is - I survived my craniotomy with no problems at all. This is what I looked like after my surgery and after I had all my hair cut off. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see what I would look like with no hair. Thank goodness I dont need to do that again.

I am now back in school because I have not been able to find any long term job since my surgery. After I lost a job opportunity I really wanted, I decided that it was time I went back to school to update my skills.

So that is what I am doing right now - one year after my surgery - back in school.